Climate Change and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

In June 2009, six students (from Biology, ESRM and Political Science) and two professors, Dr. Amy Denton and Dr. Scott Frisch, traveled to the Alaskan arctic for an intensive field study component of Science & Public Policy (BIOL/POLS 345), an interdisciplinary course examining the relationship between science, politics, and public policy. The class spent six days exploring evidence of the impacts of climate change and studying the vegetation, wildlife, and geology of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from a remote wilderness base camp as the annual migration of the Porcupine caribou herd began. They also toured the Prudhoe Bay oil fields on Alaska’s north slope, talked with residents of the Gwich’in Athabascan community of Arctic Village and the Inupiat village of Kaktovik, hiked in the boreal forest, and visited the University of Alaska Fairbanks.